Mammals
Black-Tailed Prairie Dog (Cynomys ludovicianus)
Prairie Dog Standing   Prairie Dog in Kitchen
Although my prairie dog, Dakota, spends most of her time in her cage (see below), I sometimes let her have the run of the house (or, at least, part of it) when I'm home in the evening.  The entire time she is out, she either stands by my feet wanting to be petted (above, left) or explores everything she can reach (above, right).  In the summer, I will also let her run around the yard.  Although she loves being outside, she makes no attempt to run away, and will come when I call.prair
      My prairie dog is one of the few exceptions to my "only reptiles and amphibians" rule - probably because she was not a premeditated, well-reasoned acquisition, but rather one born of chance.  Without going into all the details, I adopted her from a dealer who couldn’t sell her because she had been injured; he was thinking of feeding her to a large snake.  I certainly don’t have anything against snakes, but I figured it would be a shame to demote a prairie dog to food status when there are so many mice, rats, and chickens in the world.  So I took her home on my next visit (December of 1999) and have had Dakota (as she is now called) ever since.  At one time, all prairie dogs in the pet trade were wild-caught animals; with the increasing popularity of prairie dogs as pets, captive-bred individuals are becoming more common.  I don't know which category Dakotas falls into.
     If you’ve ever been out west, you are no doubt aware that prairie dogs are native to the American interior.  There are five species of prairie dogs, the most common being the black-tailed prairie dog, Cynomys ludovicianus.  Before the arrival of Europeans, prairie dog populations in the United States were estimated to have numbered in the billions, and prairie dog towns were common throughout open habitats of the continental interior.  With the explosion of towns, farms, and ranches, however, prairie dog populations (and those of a variety of other native animals) have plummeted due to habitat fragmentation and many other factors; they now only occupy about 1-2% of their former range.  Accordingly, in order to maintain populations of prairie dogs and other prairie animals for future generations, it is important to support groups such as The Nature Conservancy that are working to protect them and their native habitats.
     Since prairie dogs live in predominantly vertical burrows in the wild, I keep Dakota in a fairly large vertical ferret cage (4’ high, 2’ deep, 2.5’ wide), with four levels.  I’ve also made a number of modifications to the cage to make it better-designed for a prairie dog.  First, since Dakota is blind in one eye (and therefore lacks depth perception), I added some additional ladders and “safety nets” to the cage to ensure that she can’t fall from the top to the bottom in one step.  I’ve also attached pieces of hardware cloth over many parts of the cage so that timothy hay, scraps of newspapers, and other materials won’t fall out.  Finally, I’ve lined all the platforms with newspaper and sandwiched the newspaper between two pieces of hardware cloth secured with cable ties; this catches/absorbs her fecal pellets and urine and helps prevent her claws from getting caught on the wire shelves.  (If you acquire a prairie dog when it is young, you can evidently train it to latrine in a single area; I acquired Dakota as an adult, and therefore she goes wherever she wants.) 
Prairie Dog Cage     The cage sits in a large plastic tray that is held in place by two hooks.  The bottom of the cage is lined with newspaper, and a large ceramic bowl is present that Dakota uses as a nesting spot.  Dakota’s nesting material is mostly comprised of the newspaper on the bottom of the cage that she shreds and fluffs into a surprisingly soft form.  When I clean the cage I keep her nest intact so she doesn’t have to rebuild it every time.  I also scatter some aspen or pine pellets on the bottom of the cage to help absorb any moisture.  The whole cage sits inside a low, wooden tray that acts as additional line of defense in keeping newspaper, hay, and pellets from littering the floor around the cage.
     I also keep a few things in the cage for Dakota to chew on.  These include some large sticks, some nylon ropes that hang from the roof of the cage, and a large running wheel.  I have never seen Dakota actually run in the wheel, though she does seem to enjoy grabbing it in her mouth and turning it, bit by bit.  A large plywood board sits on top of the cage, and Dakota enjoys gnawing on this more than anything else.  It can get a bit irritating after a while, but at least is keeps her happy.
     For food, Dakota mostly eats timothy hay and the “rodent blocks” that scientific labs feed to their mouse and rat populations.  These rodent blocks aren’t the most natural of foods, but they can’t be beat nutritionally-speaking.  Because obesity is a major cause of health problems in pretty much every living organism (adult prairie dogs should generally weigh between 2 and 4 lbs.), I make sure to only give Dakota about an inch and a half of these rodent blocks each day.  I permit her to eat as much timothy hay as she wants, however, since it’s tough to get fat eating dry grass.  Besides these staples, I periodically give her a small piece of sweet potato or carrot, and less frequently, a nut of some sort or a piece of dry dog food.  She drinks water out of a bottle hung on the side of the cage.
     Prairie dogs are very interesting and rewarding pets which, if properly cared for, can live for 12-15 years.  Unlike most rodent pets (like hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, and mice) prairie dogs are very social and absolutely LOVE attention.  Whenever I walk past Dakota’s cage and she is awake, she will climb to the corner nearest to me in the hopes that I will pet her for a while.  As long as I am willing to pet her, Dakota is willing to be petted.  You can even flip her on her back and rub her stomach, if you’re so inclined.
     Prairie dogs greet each other with what looks to be something like an open-mouthed kiss.  Because of this, their mouth is also open when greeting a human and this can be a bit intimidating for someone unfamiliar with the ritual; it looks like the prairie dog is ready to latch onto your finger with those sharp incisors (which is something you definitely do not want).  In reality, when Dakota does this, she just expects to have her cheeks (and often her tongue) scratched a bit on both sides of her face in terms of a greeting.
     Prairie dogs are also very vocal, and this is often a good clue to their current mood.  The most common sounds from Dakota include one that sounds a lot like “yah-hoo” and another that is best described as a “chittering.”  The former seems to be some sort of vocal greeting, just to say that she’s there and awake.  It is usually in response to another sound, often a sneeze or a cough (making it the prairie dog version of “God bless you”), but sometimes the rattle of keys or unlocking of the front door with also elicit the call. As she makes it, she usually stands on two legs and throws her head back.  It’s a surprisingly loud call for a little animal and has startled me on more than one occasion when she has done it while I’m petting her.  The second call, chittering, is the sign of a mad prairie dog and is a signal to stay away. If you’ve ever been around a tree squirrel when a dog or cat is around, you might have heard a similar call.  (Since prairie dogs are related to tree squirrels, I guess it makes sense they have some similar calls.)  Dakota sometimes chitters when I put her back in her cage (and she would rather be out and about), but she most often does it now when strangers are around.
     Although I keep Dakota in her cage most of the time, I will sometimes let her run around the house when I am at home.  Unlike rabbits and many other rodents, she has never shown a tendency to chew on things she shouldn’t such as electrical wires or wooden trim.  She does like to pull strings out of fabric, however, so I have to keep her away from loosely woven rugs and things of that nature.  She mostly just follows me around the apartment when she’s on the loose, hoping to be scratched ad infinitum.  After being ignored for a bit, she eventually takes to exploring the apartment, tasting and smelling most everything at prairie-dog height.  When startled, she immediately runs back into her cage just as wild prairie dogs run back into their holes.  She feels most secure in her cage, and will often stay there even when I have the door open, if I’m not paying attention to her.  Because prairie dogs are very territorial, moving can be a traumatic experience for them; Dakota wouldn’t leave her cage for several weeks after I moved from one apartment to another, and it took her several days to just leave her nest.
     I was never able to find out when or how Dakota was injured, but I think it must have involved some sort of blow to the right side of her head; her right eye was gone when I acquired her and her right upper incisor was misaligned.  It looked like her damaged eye had healed over well enough, so I wasn’t too concerned about that; I was more concerned about her teeth. 
     Like all other rodents (and rabbits, too) prairie dogs have ever-growing (“hypselodont”) upper and lower incisors (front teeth).  The term “ever-growing” means that these teeth never close their roots; new tooth material is continually deposited at the base of the tooth to compensate for the material being worn away at the tip (the occlusal surface).  If you’ve ever owned a hamster or a rabbit,  you know that both of these animals seem to constantly gnaw on things, especially wood; the fact that their front teeth are ever-growing prevents the teeth from being worn down to small, useless nubs in a very short amount of time because of all this gnawing.  In fact, to keep them well-fashioned for gnawing, rodents and rabbits “self-sharpen” their incisors; the lower ones are used to sharpen the uppers and vice versa.  This works because, unlike our incisors, rodent and rabbit incisors only have enamel (the extremely hard covering of a tooth) on the front edge; the rest of the tooth consists of dentin, a slightly softer substance that is similar to bone.  When the teeth wear against one other, the front edge of each tooth is worn down less rapidly than the back, creating a chisel-like tip.  The only problem with this system is that if the tip of a tooth ISN’T being worn down – if, for example, a lower incisors is broken so it can’t sharpen the corresponding upper incisor - the tooth will then grow too fast, become too long, and cause problems.  This is a relatively common problem in rabbits, and the only way to deal with it is to have the incisor trimmed by a vet periodically.
     Accordingly, soon after I brought Dakota home, I took her to a vet to have her teeth examined; I was concerned that since her right upper incisor was misaligned, it, or the lower incisor on that side, might need to be clipped.  The vet said that since clipping teeth is not an easy procedure for anyone involved (least of all the prairie dog), I should wait until I see signs that it is affecting Dakota’s ability to eat before having anything done.  I was happy with that prognosis (as was Dakota), and to this day, the problem hasn’t gotten any worse.  Her right upper incisor is still misaligned (it is positioned in front of the left one instead of next to it) but her right lower incisor is fine; she must be able to sharpen both using her left upper incisor.  Her right upper incisor is blunt, as would be expected for a tooth that cannot be sharpened, but I have no idea why it hasn’t grown too long.  If Dakota were a rabbit, she certainly would have had to have it clipped long ago.
     Prairie dogs make fascinating pets, combining some of the best traits of more traditional pets like cats and dogs.  They definitely require special care and a significant amount of commitment, so if you're thinking of acquiring one, read a book on prairie dogs and check out some of the other resources on the internet. There is certainly no consensus that they should even be kept as pets (I consider my situation  akin to a "rescue") so if you're considering one, you might want to instead stick with a more traditional large rodent such as a guinea pig or chinchilla.
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This page was last updated on December 12, 2006.